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Business
Times - 02 Sep 2008
Some
70% of space let out at City Square Mall
It
has also secured nine anchor tenants and will open in Q4 of
next year
By UMA SHANKARI
SINGAPORE'S
first eco- friendly mall - City Developments' City Square Mall
- is close to 70 per cent let and has secured nine anchor
tenants.
The mall
will open in the fourth quarter of 2009.
The
developer yesterday disclosed the anchor tenants which
together will occupy about half of the total lettable space in
the 700,000 square foot mall.
They are
Metro, NTUC FairPrice, Best Denki, Kopitiam, MindChamps
PreSchool, Amore Fitness & Boutique Spa, home furnishings
company V.Hive, Popular bookstore, and halal food court
operator Banquet.
Another
20 per cent of space has also been let out. CityDev said it
will unveil these non-anchor tenants later.
Rents at
the mall are close to market rates, said CityDev's group
general manager Chia Ngiang Hong. In general, suburban malls
fetch about $8-$15 per square foot per month (psf pm) on
average, although rents at some prime suburban malls can hit
$40 psf pm.
Mr Chia
said CityDev is optimistic that it will achieve its target of
attracting at least 1.3 million visitors a month to the mall.
'We
believe that the buying sentiment of the heartland population
will always be there (even in an economic slowdown),' he said.
The mall
is targeting both Singapore and middle-income tourist
shoppers.
With
over 250 shops, the $200 million City Square Mall will be one
of the largest malls in Singapore. It is also touted as the
Republic's first eco-friendly mall and will boast 'green'
features such as eco-restrooms that save water and electricity
and an eco-roof that will harness solar power and rainwater.
It is
projected to reduce its energy usage by about 39 per cent
compared with designs using standard industry codes.
In line
with this, anchor tenants will also be encouraged to look at
green features.
Metro,
the largest anchor tenant with some 56,000 sq ft of space,
will run a 'family-friendly store in the suburbs for suburban
shoppers', said Wong Sioe Hong, managing director of Metro
(Private) Limited.
NTUC
FairPrice - the second-largest tenant with some 26,000 sq ft
of space - will open its pilot eco-friendly supermarket with a
host of green features. These include dedicated checkout lanes
for shoppers with reusable bags and motion-sensor lighting in
the store office and storeroom.
While
most mall operators are moving away from signing up anchor
tenants, City Square Mall is sticking to the format, said
Corinne Yap, CityDev's deputy general manager for marketing
and leasing.
'We feel
very strongly that the mall needs to be anchored with strong
tenants,' she said. This allows the developer to get better
rentals from the rest of the tenants, she added.
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